LONDON — Following the latest round of international sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Russian assets are becoming “uninvestable,” according to Goldman Sachs.

key measure aims to freeze the Central Bank of Russia’sA $630 billion stockpile of foreign reserves prevents central banks from purchasing the Russian ruble from Western financial institutions, and from liquidating their assets. This comes after measures taken last week to effectively exclude Russian banks from Western financial systems.

The U.S. and its European allies, Canada, and Canada, also agreed over the weekend to disconnect key Russian banks form the SWIFT messaging network. This system connects nearly 11,000 financial institutions and banks in more than 200 countries.

On March 26, new U.S. sanctions will be in place against Russian banks powerhouses Sberbank, VTB. However, many details about the fresh sanctions remain to be disclosed by different governments.

KamakshyaTrivedi (co-head of emerging market, foreign rates, and currency strategy, Goldman Sachs) told CNBC Monday that the move was the most significant to date because it eliminates Moscow’s “main line of defense” from the decline of its local assets.

The Russian ruble plunged a further 29% against the dollarEarly Monday morning, the market hit an all-time low. It then recovered some losses mid-afternoon. central bank more than doubled the country’s key interest rateTo offset inflation and further depreciation, the 20% rate was increased to 9.5%.

Trivedi said that the currency would see volatility and continued weakness.

“If you think about the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the whole 2014 to 2015 period – where it was the end of the year, you also had an escalation of violence in the Donbas, big fall in oil prices – there was a decumulation of Russia’s reserves of the order of upwards of $100 billion dollars … and there were very significant interventions on a day-by-day basis in that period,” he said.

Trivedi stated that these actions highlighted the importance of reserves in stabilizing currencies. He also noted that the ruble experienced a substantial sell-off at that time.

He said, “When you look back to today, if the main defense mechanism of Russia is not accessible or very easily accessible by Russian authorities, that will mean much greater pain and volatility within local assets. And that’s exactly what you’re seeing.”

“I believe those assets are going to be increasingly inaccessible for many global investors, aside from their technical nature of how individuals transact in them.”

With Russian assets under “intense” and “sustained” pressure, he suggested that emerging market countries that are commodity producers and distanced from the immediate “theater of conflict” – such as Latin America and the Gulf – might offer a more attractive medium-term proposition for investors.

However, there are still many details to be worked out on how sanctions will be implemented and differences between the U.S.A. and EU regarding the targeted institutions. It may not yet be possible to assess the extent of any impact this latest development might have on the central banks.

‘Hybrid war’

CNBC interviewed Sergey Aleksashenko on Monday, former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia. He said volatility could be restricted until full implementation becomes apparent. However, new sanctions might grind the central banking to a halt.

He stated that if the European Union, the U.S., and G-7 members believe they will block any central bank assets or accounts, then that would mean that gold the central bank holds the next day amounts to $135 billion of gold, which is physical gold kept in Russia and about $60 billion in (Chinese renminbi), so that’s what it is.”

That means there are no dollars and euros in Russia, but the Russian demand is small for renminbi. Furthermore, this means that a central bank cannot sell gold because it will not pay any one bank in dollars or euros. Selling for renminbi, however, is absurd.

This would prevent CBR from operating its daily operations and can be viewed as “hybrid warfare.”

It was not the United States and the EU that started this war. Russia started the war against civilization, the 21st century and the entire world,” he stated, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been conducting this war for years before the West responded with economic sanctions.

“If Russia wants to use the instruments of the current civilization, if Russia wants to use instruments of the globalized economy, the globalized world – the U.S. dollar, the euro, the British legal system, American legal system, European legal system – Russia should behave itself according to the rules,” Aleksashenko said.